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Thursday, March 23, 2006

A little late, I know, but I found this blog post particularly interesting. Very well researched and most likely with more than one grain of truth to it. The article is worth checking out, if only for the links provided.

"Many media outlets including Reuters are reporting that Isaac Hayes, voice of Chef on the TV series South Park, has quit the show:

'In ten years and over 150 episodes of 'South Park,' Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews,' Stone said in a statement issued by the Comedy Central network. 'He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.'

"Hayes is a long-time Scientologist. He's quoted as saying 'There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs ... begins.'

"It may appear on the surface that this is simply a principled, personal stand by the man beneath the hat, but there's likely more to it than that.

"A Wikipedia article says 'In a radio interview a week prior to the announcement on the XM Radio show Opie and Anthony, Hayes said he was not particularly offended by the episode because of the level of satire people have come to expect from the show.' So why the sudden turn?

"The 'intolerance and bigotry' line echoes Scientology's treatment of its critics. A Church-related site called religiousfreedomwatch.com paints critics of the organization as anti-religious extremists, bigots, and dangerous terrorists. The Church teaches that anyone who'd oppose Scientology has hidden crimes, and is an anti-social personality."TweetFollow @dorkland

I found this photostream via a link on Boing-Boing. As the latest installment of Asian cultures appropriating words that they think sound cool (regardless of whether or not they know what it means or not) you can now live in a condo named "Blog"!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Boing-Boing is one of my favorite web-sites out there on the ole' intraweb...however, I think that they can, and do, get themselves worked up into a frenzy over the wrong things from time to time.

This, I think, is one of them.

Did DC and Marvel Comics create the term super-hero? No, probably not. However, did they not invest a lot of time, money and effort into the development of the concept of the super-hero? Certainly. Very much so, I think, and without any sort of argument. Yes, there are other comic book companies out there and, yes, they do super-hero books. However, if it hadn't been for the effort of those two companies over the last three-quarters of a century or so there really wouldn't be the concept of "super-heroes" as we know it for other sources to "exploit." I think that this deserves them more than a little consideration on the topic of trademarking the term super-hero.

Personally, I have no trouble with it and no issues at all with those companies owning a trade-mark on the word. Will this stop others from making super-hero comics? Let's ask Charlton, Fawcett, Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, and all of the multitude of greater and lesser known Independent Comic Publishers out there....hm, I guess that they can still make super-hero comics. With or without being able to directly use the term super-hero.

Frankly, the argument put forward by Cory Doctrow in this post is less than engaging. And I find it a bit asinine to be completely honest. In this case ownership of a word does not equal ownership of that concept. Whoever owns the word, it will not mean that super-hero comic books, movies, novels or role-playing games will fade away (or even be oppressed).

Don't they have something valid and worthwhile to argue about, like Sony and their draconian DRM measures?

"Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word 'super-hero' from the public domain and put it in a lock-box to which it will control the key. Marvel and DC comics jointly filed a trademark on the word 'super-hero.' They use this mark to legally harass indie comic companies that make competing comic books."

I am sure that this will end up being an unpopular post (if it is noticed at all in the great noise-to-signal ratio of the Internet). However, this last sentence that I quoted above is complete and utter horse-crap. Do I care if my saying that pisses folks off? Not in the least...the nice thing about the world today is that we still have the voice with which to speak up on dissenting viewpoints. I'm not usually this ranty but this post just struck me as dumb-headed and naive.

[By the way, if you decide to comment on this post...please, please, please do so. This blog is Moderated, but that is only because I receive so damn many spam comments that it is the easiest way to combat them. I never delete a comment because I don't agree with it.]

Well, you might just find this post a little odd in regards to the sorts of things that I normally post. Well, its my blog so that allows me to define what is and what isn't dorky.

Here's the thing, there's a company called SmartFilter who creates and maintains web filtering software that is used by a number of corporations and even a foreign country or two.

So, basically I am throwing up a link to the sort of clearing house post on this topic that Boing Boing has put up on their site. Good, bad, indifferent...whatever it is that your take is on this subject, things are moving in a certain way in the world.

The question that I have to ask is, are there multiple standards at work in what should and should not be blocked? Due to alleged interests of the point man (I'm assuming that its a man...hard to tell from the name) it looks like certain fetishistic behaviors that some parents, corporations and foreign countries would like to have blocked...aren't being blocked by this software.

All that I think I can really say is, read the linked article and read through some of the links that are in it (if, of course, your filtering software will allow you to do this) and make your own decisions.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

We've all been folowing the recent Anagram Map meme at RPGnet. After offering InvaderZul at RPG.net to host his own Anagram Map on my blog he came through with a finalized version. So, here it is and enjoy.

Women Working in Comics Results
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The results of the Women Working in Comics survey are in! This survey
received 72 responses - not the kind of numbers you'd want to hinge a
national electi...

6 years ago

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For more than 13 years, the Dorkland! blog has presented some of the best in news, opinion and review writing for tabletop gaming enthusiasts, along with original gaming material for a number of different games and genres.

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